Poles can't deny role in Auschwitz

Kaja Kazmierska is technically correct when she says "Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp (was) in Nazi German-occupied Poland" and not under the control of a sovereign Polish government (Write Back, September 14).

Kaja Kazmierska is technically correct when she says "Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp (was) in Nazi German-occupied Poland" and not under the control of a sovereign Polish government (Write Back, September 14).

However, the reason is straightforward: the Nazis knew that Poland, with its deeply entrenched anti-Semitism, was arguably the only place under its control that would accept such an extermination centre.

Indeed, Polish historical anti-Semitism was so ingrained that on July 4, 1946 - barely 16 months after the liberation of Auschwitz - an enraged Polish community in Kielce initiated a pogrom of brutal proportions.

This small town murdered nearly 50 Holocaust survivors.

This innate anti-Semitic world view was ultimately why the Nazis located extermination centres in Poland.

And, although this might be unpalatable for modern-day Poles, it cannot be denied.